If you are anti Immigration, Anti Choice, Anti Femminist, Anti Bill Clinton, Anti Health reform (25 percent of the people uninsured), Anti Obama, and want to teach creation in public schools, and think Chuck Norris is 100 percent correct, you'll be the next US senator in Arkansas!

Yeah, I don't think the DNC even wants to deal with Arkansas anymore. I admire Halter a lot for even going forward against this right wing machine. If the voters want to continue to go backwards than so be it. When you can elect such a great bullshiter as Huckabee no wonder they'll believe the lies.

I can't understand why Hillary was so popular there when she ran against Obama. I would think a stereotypical femminist like her who had to take her husband's last name just so he could get re-elected wouldn't be that popular in this day and age.

AR used to have a strong loyal Democratic base, but this year the GA races are closer than this one.

I don't know, Xenobion, I usually don't believe these Rasmussen polls, but Arkansas has remained this way for a long time. I don't think Democrats in that state have done enough to focus on issues rather than just the fact that Obama is so unpopular.

Arkansas still has a large number of registered Democrats, leading other southern states. Kerry and Gore lost by just a few points, compared to how badly they lost in Georgia, SC and Texas. That is why it is a mystery to me why there is such a revolt.

The Governor is a Democrat and still has high approval. I just don't get it.

In the rest of the states, the percentage and number of Democratic votes increased from the number and percentage in 2004. (The largest change was in Indiana with a 10.6% shift to the left, and the smallest change was in Arizona with a 0.6% shift to the left. Population wise, the largest shift to the left occurred in California with 1,528,988 more Democratic votes, and the smallest shift occurred in Wyoming with 12,092 more Democratic votes.)

If anyone cares, I can post the results for the rest of the fifty states.

Well there was a shift in NC in 2008 towards the Democrats and a bit in Virginia.

The decline of Democratic votes in Lousisiana had to do with the loss of much of New Orleans population, most of whom who moved out of state were African American. That would make a difference.

Nevada had a big shift in 2008 and a big shift back to GOP this year so far. The state where Democrats really did well in that was a huge surprise was Montana. It still has a few more registered Republicans than Democrats yet they have 2 Democratic senators and a Democratic governor. They are all fairly centrist, but loyal to the party.

I think this has a lot to do with organization. The states with increasing conservative voters don't have a well organized Democratic party. With poll numbers like the one on top, I would say that the Democratic party of Arkansas has failed. I would give Democrats in Louisiana a failing grade too since it was only about 8 years ago, Democrats did very well. Are Mary Landreu and her brother the only elected Democrats left in the state? Just kidding.

Other states in the south went Republican back in the 1970's, 80's and early 90's.

Farleftandproud: Also in South Carolina,Georgia, and Texas people who are more likely to vote Democratic (blacks, latinos, Yankees :P) have been immigrating to those states in large numbers. Although, in Arkansas, I have heard that they've had a substantial increase in Latino voters, so that is sort of strange.

The number of registered Democrats vs. Republicans is a very poor indicator of how Democratic or Republican the state is as a whole. For example, Oklahoma has more registered Democrats than Republicans yet McCain won every single county in the state and won the state by the largest percentage of all. Arkansas may have more registered Democrats than Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas, but it certainly isn't as liberal as any of them. Many of the people who are registered as Democrats would be considered Dixiecrats, meaning that they haven't voted for a Democrat for President in a long long time.

Farleftandproud: You might be right about the party organization. Seeing as I don't live in Louisiana or Arkansas, I cannot really tell you how their state's Democratic party is doing. What I believe is this though, while some states immediately shifted to the GOP following the introduction of the Southern Plan, others did so gradually. Tenneessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky and Louisiana took a much longer time for the GOP to finally capture than did Alabama, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Mississippi.

In my honest opinion, although I highly doubt that the Democrats are in this dire situation as the poll suggests, (Rasmussen polls have been heavily GOP biased lately. Not sure why.) unless something changes in the coming months, both Lincoln and Blanche will lose their Senate seats to the GOP. It just doesn't look that good for either one of them.

An interesting future trend to watch will be to see if the Democrats are starting to win back the East Coast southern states. All five of the East Coast southern states (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida) had huge shifts to the left in 2008, and Obama managed to carry three of them. It'll be interesting to see if these shifts are permanent or not. They just might become future blue states. It's too early to tell at this point though.

Farleftandproud: One more thing I forgot, you are right about Louisiana shifting to the right due to Katrina. I can explain most of the shifts to the right in the other states, however the Arkansas shift doesn't make any sense to me. I can't think of anything to explain for it. Perhaps someone from the state would be able to explain this. Has the Arkansas Democratic party been embroiled in corruption in the past couple of years or something?

If you ask me, AR shift is part of the larger shift toward republicans in the Appalachian region. Basically the same thing that's happening in WV, KY, TN, southern OH, southeastern PA, is happening to AR. As democrats are becoming more and more the urban party, these states without domineering urban areas are trending more and more red.

Most states that trended blue have large urban areas whose political culture bleeds out into their suburbs and exurbs, ie: NV, NC, CO. An exception would be IA, it is rural but remains relatively liberal, not sure how that works.

It is kind of sad the Appalachian area has bought into GOP policies. I am sure it has to do with the Evangelical factor. Some of those areas have so much poverty it is hard to believe that they can vote for the same extreme capitalists who won't raise their wages and cut their hours. Mining is such a big industry in those places.

Obama did a great eulogy in WV after the mining tragedy. He knows he is their president just as much as he is everywhere else. WV was the only southern state that went for Michael Dukakis.

I think Nevada is unusual in the sense they are not a state that is all that interested in politics. Entertainment and tourism seem to be what drives the state. I think they tend to blame the people in power if the economy and housing market goes bad.

Iowa in contrast is just the opposite. I find Iowans the most politically active on both the progressive and conservative sides. It is probably because of the big caucuses. It is for presidential candidates what Hollywood or broadway is for actors and actresses. It is a place where you meet your success of failure.

Don't forget Nevada either. Reid should simply campaign against the attack ads she runs with her big mouth and her lies. He doesn't have to outspend her. Reid can't lose to that insensitive Mary Antoinette Casino Tycoon.

"Reid can't lose to that insensitive Marie Antoinette Casino Tycoon." Apparently he can and will, if the polls mean anything. And, just a hunch, but I don't think being involved in the casino business is seen as a negative in Nevada.

Bottom line is, Reid is not worth saving for the Democrats. If he wins, I imagine that he'll keep his Majority Leader position, which based on his "popularity" and generally ineffective leadership, I think would be more damaging to the Dems than to actually lose his seat. Besides, Lowden would probably be a pretty easy pickoff in 2016 if the Democrats found a good candidate.

Oh, and one more point about Reid--I imagine having his even less popular son on the ballot for the Governor's race will leave a taste of nepotism in the voters' mouths and hurt him even more. Until a credible (i.e. non-DailyKos) poll comes out showing him with a decent shot at beating Lowden, it would be foolish for Dems to spend money on his race instead of in MO, NH, OH, etc. And Democratic Nevada donors should be saving their ammo for beating Ensign instead of on trying to keep the Reid dynasty going.

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